Mann Westwood 4

1050 Gayley Ave,

Westwood,

Los Angeles,
CA

Nothing replaced the National. The Village and Bruin are well kept and still as wonderful as they have ever been. The Villag, Bruin and Landmark Regent are the only operating theatres in Westwood Village currently.

Is that Whole Foods a complete rebuild or did they use the original structure? I hope someone will come up with a picture of the theater back in the day. I saw a few films there in the late 1970s (“Fedora”, “Airplane”) but I’m totally blank on the way it looked.

I only went here twice – the first time was to see “Pulp Fiction.” It was Christmas 1994 and I was visiting home during winter break at college in Louisiana. By that time, “Pulp Fiction” had already gripped major cities in a frenzy but, with me being in Boondockville, LA, I only read about it in the paper. So I hauled myself on down to this theatre where it played in its largest auditorium. The place was (still) packed and the Dolby Digital was in full effect. 2 hours later, I was caught up in the frenzy like the rest of the world. To this day, this was one of the best movie theatre experiences of my life. Unforgettable!

I saw the mid 80s version of Godzilla at this theater. I remember the scenes were Raymond Burr was spliced in, pretty much just standing there talking like Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers films. The audience had a good time.

This was always the most uneventful theater in Westwood even during Westwood’s heyday in the 1980’s. On the corner, just up the street from this theater was Malone’s, which was a very popular night spot. Even that place has changed names. The loss of Mann Westwood 4 was not quite lamentable, but the loss of other theaters in Westwood, i.e. National, is regrettable.

The Uclan Theater in Westwood was advertised in the LA Times on 1/22/50. It looks like an art house as the features were “Donizetti’s Opera” and “This Wine of Love”. Any UCLA grads circa 1950 are welcome to add more information as there is no listing on CT as of yet.

This building opened as a Safeway market. In the mid 70’s it was converted into the Mann’s Westwood Triplex theatre. At that time Mann theatres had only the Village, National, Bruin theatres, so the triplex was going to be a move-over house for them.